


So Vile, So Vicious, So Vain

by writerwrites_A03



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:26:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27759862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerwrites_A03/pseuds/writerwrites_A03
Summary: Call him whatever you’d like, you’re still stupidly in love with your ex, Bucky Barnes.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Reader, James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 46





	So Vile, So Vicious, So Vain

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: *THIS IS A ONE SHOT* This is my entry for @fvckingavengers‘ Quarantine Writing Challenge! My song for the challenge was Enemy by CHVRCHES ft. Matt Berninger ; Here is the reference for Stark Tower ; Bucky dividers by @whimsicalrogers

Steve had been laying in bed for at least a half an hour, drawing in the margins of a weathered and beloved copy of Giovanni’s Room when he heard two sets of feet across the identical set of flats above him. Sleep rarely came on a Friday night. Bucky, Sam, and Steve typically rolled out to a few bars with Nat, Wanda, and the new recruit. Steve enjoyed a few beers, played wingman. For the most part it had gone the same way every time: someone took Sam home and Bucky brought someone back to the Tower. Nat coddled Wanda and Steve and the new girl watched the aftermath with humor.

She was quieter than he’d like a new recruit to be, but Bucky was the one that found her and thought she would be a good fit. Steve watched the pair interact, the routine change, his best friend fall in love. It surprised him to see how easy it was for Bucky to open up to her. There was a comfort in watching them grow together and then also a tinge of jealousy. But what had started as camaraderie and friendship was quickly tangled in lust or romance. Steve was the only one that heard every word of every fight, every moan of every fuck. Still, he bit his tongue because he knew that if the shoe was on his foot and Bucky was risking his neck for the team he would blow a gasket too. Steve listened to Nat’s chatter with the recruit as they moved down in the elevator to the kitchen and he shut his eyes in relief that just a few minutes past, Bucky and his rebound-of-the-night had retreated to his room on a whole different level of the Tower, narrowly missing a clash of tongues.

Cap thought about how, as time marched on, the relationship’s bursts of passion started to pour out of their respective Tower apartments, churning both levels and communal areas of the Tower into a thick mass of tension. Steve wondered which way it would tip, a screaming match where they broke up or killed each other, worse still a screaming match that led to a proposal or the complete undoing of the team. The issue remained, as Steve observed and told Natasha over a beer on an outing where Bucky and Y/N seemed to carry on like a perfectly normal and capable couple, that if either of them were hurt because of their own mistakes they would die of self-loathing. That wouldn’t matter in a normal relationship, but their jobs made everything anything but normal and the pair loved it too much to leave. Then, as he thought the dust had settled for the evening…

“James Buchanan Barnes!” You screamed through Stark Tower’s kitchen as you spun the butterfly knife you always carried on you out of your pocket and marched toward the elevator. The sound of your pulse in your ears was louder than Natasha’s smart remark and quick plea to not start drama before the sun was up.

The tone from Jarvis didn’t stop you from telling the elevator to shut the hell up and open the doors when it reached your enemy’s level of the Tower’s private quarters. God, you hated the scanner, the machine rattling off its concerns when it noted your pulse and expression, read the weapon in your hand and interrogating you about any perceived threats in Stark Tower. You couldn’t get out of there fast enough, let alone to Bucky’s door. You knew the code but you were seeing red as your free hand formed a fist and banged on the door. It wasn’t a surprise to see him open it in seconds, but despite knowing what he was up to the night before you hadn’t expected him to answer in boxer briefs; vibranium arm, bruises, abs, and hickies on full display. In a blink, you found your resolve once more. Spinning the weapon as if to move the blade up to his jaw, knowing that he would immediately go for your hand, and also knowing he would know you knew what his reaction would be, he would catch it when you dropped the knife so that you could clutch it in the opposing hand and overtake him. That was your window of opportunity, that was why you came to his door fuming.

As soon as Bucky caught the knife you lifted your knee straight into his package. Catching your knife when he let go to cup his junk and catch his breath and you kept your eyes on him the whole time. “Don’t give the bitch you’re rebounding with my fucking property. It’s bad enough you bring her here, worse still that you let her use the wine glasses you bought me.” Bucky was about to offer up something, beit apology or excuse, but you didn’t let him get it out. “Couldn’t even do the dishes because you wanted to get your dick wet?”

Bucky growled, standing up straight despite the obvious pain you had put him in. He watched you, jaw tight, as you flipped your butterfly knife expertly at a rapid pace. It was your favorite little weapon that he’d given you, an art you’d mastered with his help. The movements were your way of coping with your emotions because you hated the way the group babied you, read you like a book, and at least this way they knew it meant ‘fuck off’. Everything always seemed to come from you in passionate bursts, Steve had certainly said as much. “What’s this really about, Y/N?”

The absence of your pet name was an unbearable shock. You pulled away when he grabbed your wrist, causing the knife to slip from your hand, slicing deep into your palm when you caught it. Your face went pale, partly from the shock of him touching you and mostly from the burning pain of the cool metal wedging into your flesh with ease. Turning quickly on your heel you stomped back toward the elevator, a steady trail of blood following you as you hesitated to pull the knife from your dominant hand for fear of making the wound worse and a stubborn refusal to pull your hand to your chest like a maimed child. 

Bucky’s silent steps were steady behind you and you should’ve known but you weren’t listening as your eyes stung with tears and your only thoughts were about how good it should have felt to hurt him a little and how typical it was that you were the one walking away hurt.

_Jarvis, open the fucking door! Get me out of here._ You repeat it over and over in your head like a mantra. Your uninjured hand in a fist so tight that your nails were going to leave bruises in your functional palm. “Lab.” You demand through gritted teeth, still oblivious to the imposing man following you. The doors chime closed, the elevator jolts to life, and Jarvis starts analyzing you like a broken toy. Your good fist punches the elevator wall with effective fury, but each hit was emphasized with a feeble whimper of words, “I. hate. that. I. am. still. so. in. love. with. you.” And, though you still hadn’t realized he was there, Bucky caught every word and his body tensed as he forced himself to not reach out and comfort you.

It was Jarvis that spoke, “Administering targeted aerosol sedation.” Just as your brain attempted to process a ‘that’s new’ or ‘damn you Tony Stark’ you were collapsing into familiar arms you didn’t realize were there. There was no tenderness in the way he kicked the knife into the gap between the elevator and the plane of the medical labs. He held you tightly to his bare chest, your curled up palm bleeding warm down his skin as he used the pressure of holding you as some level of leverage while he stomped to a table and took care of you. With practically everyone else in the Tower still asleep and Jarvis more than capable of taking care of the steps Bucky couldn’t by talking him through it, you were unknowingly given a moment of modesty from your ex. You would have a scar and Bucky would blame himself for it, but you wouldn’t find him when you woke up and he wouldn’t speak to you or anyone else about the incident.

With a bandaged hand, missing knife, and bruised ego you were left to your own devices. Aside from physical therapy, once healed up to make sure your hand was tip-top, the silence was deafening as Bucky avoided you, leaving you to replay the fiasco for months. Nothing, however, made you more frustrated than waking up to the wine glass clean and free of her lipstick the night after your outburst. It was as if he’d negated your feelings once more and you’d learned nothing by acting on the hollow feeling left in the rubble of a collapsed romance, friendship, and professional partnership. When you’d stormed to his level again, intent on demanding your knife back, the blood was gone and she was there, sitting with Steve and Sam in their communal lounge. _You found the knife all right_ … straight to the heart, Steve thought when you told him why you’d turned up and immediately slipped back into the elevator. The look of pity on his face when you called your ex vile. Everyone knew you didn’t mean it, everyone except you.

“We had a good run.” The infamous last words of the relationship that formed out of a friendship that gave you your career, friends, and purpose now echoed in your head- as they often did when you were alone. While you brushed your teeth before bed, toothbrush in your ‘good hand’ as you looked down at the thick raised scar on your once-dominant hand, you wondered how much longer you would be in limbo with the team. With Nat on a mission and Wanda training with Agatha Harkness your entire level of the Tower was empty. That pitiful look on their faces when they gave you the spiel about how you needed more physical therapy on your hand like that was the only reason you weren’t being allowed to work.

It wasn’t lost on you that, in yours and Bucky’s silence, someone was going to pull up the Tower’s security logs and see what happened. For weeks you wondered how long it would be until someone asked you to step down. Bucky was, after all, Steve’s best friend. You’d attacked the one thing that mattered to the Captain and in your eyes, you couldn’t see Steve allowing an excuse. There was a code of trust and it was definitely something you felt you’d lost. Determined to right your wrongs you set out to spend the quiet night alone mentally walking through the apology you owed the team.

“Emotionally compromised,” That heartbreaking phrase was heard from around a corner of the kitchen wall. You’d snuck down for a snack to get you through the night. The mental monologue of an apology had set gears spinning in your head of all the possible negative scenarios and left you more anxious about apologizing to the team. The tone of distrust could have broken your spirit months ago when the breakup was fresh or surprised you if it hadn’t been Steve saying it. Now it only made you all the more determined to prove to the team that you could bounce back better than ever.

The last thing you wanted was for them to see you. Knowing that Steve would’ve heard you choke up at those two words, even if he hadn’t noticed you coming to the kitchen. Feet frozen as you realized you couldn’t walk in, that you couldn’t handle knowing who Steve was talking to. Gut instinct told you it was Bucky, but the thought of it being anyone else on the team or more than one person, your heart sunk further at the thought alone. So, you ran away. Determined footsteps went straight to the stairs, taking them two at a time until you were back in your room. While you may have choked up outside the kitchen and your heart raced as you leaned against the bedroom door, the thoughts rolling around your head felt clear: I can do this. I’m an Avenger. I belong here. I’m strong. I’m capable. I’ll prove it. As you pep-talked yourself a mission alert pinged on your phone.

In Steve’s eyes, all that new determination did was prove that you were unreliable. Whether Bucky had planted that seed in his mind or not made no difference to your opinion that he had. Steve had only let you loose on the tiniest mission since the breakup and subsequent injury, local and nothing all that serious and its success was subjective. You two were the only ones needed and Steve was simply playing the role of driver. Steve pushed back after that first trip out and for fear of losing your career and feeble friendships, to everyone’s surprise you didn’t explode and yell. No, your outburst was solitary, heavy sobbing straight into deep exhaustion. Luckily, Nat and Wanda were still gone. Though you had no one to vent with you also didn’t have to listen to anyone telling you that needed help, to move on- beit from the team or your twisted remnants of feelings for Bucky.

Despite how tired and sore you were from the mission, you swore to your monotonous routine of sitting alone trying to compose apologies that you hadn’t plucked up the courage to deliver. You needed the structure to keep surviving this breakup. Tonight your apology blamed Bucky, the inseparable pair of confidants controlled the decisions more than you would have cared to acknowledge and you were never an ass kisser. So, tonight’s mental monologues of apologies were for Nat and Wanda, for the cloud you’d put over their home and how you wanted to be your best self for the team and prove to Steve that you would do anything for them. The mental letter was angry and full of name calling. In the dark you were stewing in your frustration of, once again, being treated like a child by super soldiers. Knowing you couldn’t put it in writing or confront Bucky to his face, you’d settled for the silent treatment and a waiting game. “Actions speak louder than words,” you told yourself as you reached for your phone to check the time only to be disrupted by the sound of the elevator opening on your floor.

For some reason, it hadn’t dawned on you that the remaining team members in the Tower weren’t out enjoying the weekend, but then again, when Steve looked at you after the mission with such disappointment, you’d check out to your room. There was a level of certainty in your mind that the last thing you thought would happen was that Bucky would show up as heated as you had been at the inauguration of your breakup. He could tell as much by the sound of your breath hitching in the back of your bruised throat and the fact that you were alone, in the dark, wearing nothing but an oversized hoodie and your black panties, nothing to cling to your battered skin.

Bucky assumed that given the way your first little mission had gone that Wanda or Nat would have come back, a part of him even hoped they would be in the small common area your ‘apartments’ in the Tower shared so they would tell him to leave. But there you were; bare, bruised, alone. Bucky was standing at the elevator, chest heaving and Jarvis asking him if he’d like to go to another level. Well, with no one stopping him he gave the machine a gruff, “No,” and crossed the space in seconds. Just a few long strides, your eyes locked on each other, and the barrage of questions began. “What were you thinking?”

Fight, flight, or freeze? While the first seemed like it would make you feel better, the familiar and constant dull ache in your hand told you a rage-laced fight was a losing battle. Bucky wouldn’t have let you leave. Freezing seemed akin to letting your enemy win, but you accepted your only choice with defiance. Crossing your arms, you looked up at Bucky tight-lipped. His silhouette shadowed over you in the already dark room, waiting for an answer to his question which you unblinkingly denied him. You may have been frozen, but time was marching on and with it Bucky’s nerve to scream or throttle sense into you. When he spoke again, he crossed his arms in mirrored defiance, the both of you a pair of oblivious hardheads. His tone, at least, had no fight in it anymore. “You can’t keep pushing yourself to the limit and forcing the team into a position of exposure for the sake of completing a mission.”

This old fight again. Shutting your eyes as you thought out the world’s longest groan, letting your head roll back dramatically over the arm of the couch. This fight you two had fought over a million times, now slung at you from the perspective of professionalism, twisted every nerve in your body. Your heart screamed he still cared and your head told your heart to fuck off, but that ache between your thighs, that want for him, for that anger to subside into rough sex… you felt ashamed of it. And sure enough you focused on your head, trying to will yourself to pack up the serotonin this man’s mere presence gave you. Every line pouring from Bucky’s perfect lips certainly felt like a familiar dig, which you articulated by spreading out like a dead fish, limbs hanging off the sides of the small couch. “Y/N, you’re not expendable.”

As much fun as it had been giving your ex the silent treatment when he had the audacity to show up in your personal space, the irony of Bucky saying you weren’t expendable made the dry knot in your throat choke you further. Your eyes burned with the pain of his presence; the sound of his voice, the smell of his cologne, and now the added insult. Were you acting childish? Flopped over playing annoyed to death in your sitting room. The rasp in his voice, that deep timbre, it sounded more hurt than angry. “You have to stop deciding that your life is the one worth sacrificing.”

_When, between the beginning and the end, had fighting become the only way you two could communicate?_ The question sat on the tip of your tongue as tears threatened to derail your mockery of his visit. Forcing your eyes open, you glared at the upside down view of the city over the arm of the couch. The long nights staring out at the light-polluted New York City skyline, two insomniacs learning that they were more than the actions of their past. Bucky had more time to tip the scales of lives taken to lives lost. You invested everything in the life he’d given you by recruiting you to the Avengers. Every moment since then you felt like you were watching the end of your favorite thing. This had been your purpose: a place where you weren’t inherently burning bridges, a place where you not only belonged but had people to protect… maybe not all of them need it; re: super soldier. But no one ever cared about you until Bucky. No one saw potential. There had been exes, seeing you as a broken thing, making you fall for them, and leaving you when you couldn’t ‘work’. None of that hurt like this.

Bucky’s eyes were moving up your frame, softer from lack of use in the field. He swallowed as his eyes moved back down your body, counting every fresh bruise. Steve had told you what he’d heard during your interrogation and, when the target had threatened the team, how the sound of the desperate fighting had almost made him leave his post to help you until you stumbled into the alley. There wasn’t any of your own blood on you, but he’d heard the sound you made getting on the back of the bike. The reality was that Steve told Bucky the mission report out of guilt for not stepping in. Bucky would have ran to you, without question, and it was why Steve hadn’t thrown the pair of you into it. “Steve thought the mission would have been worse if I went. Do you know what he meant by that?” His voice was low, his thought half on how he used to kiss your bruises and half on how he used to scold you for how you got them. Venom, fucking and fighting.

When you straightened up, you hadn’t expected to see Bucky Barnes eyeing you. The memory of the scruff on his jaw rubbing your inner thigh raw on this very couch now at the forefront of your mind because you’d opened the lid to that can of worms. _**This** was a bad idea,_ both of you thought in unison and yet said nothing. Your glimmering eyes looked up at him, demanding that he believe the lie you kept telling everyone: I’m okay. I’m doing fine. With no makeup on the signs of sleeplessness were painted below your eyes. The look on his face wasn’t one of concern, it confused you, familiar but unplaceable in this new normal. Bucky thought you were beautiful anyways.

Just as he’d been eyeing you, you stared back at him. In your stubborn nature you didn’t answer his question. If he had something to say about what he thought Steve meant Bucky would have to come out with it. But you thought you knew. Those two words from earlier in the day still echo in your head: Emotionally compromised. The last thing you wanted was to cry for Bucky in front of Bucky. The second to last thing you wanted was for him to know how badly you wanted to rip that blue henley of his perfect frame and wrap your arms around his over-warm tanned skin because henley’s were your weakness and blue made his eyes even more beautiful and damn him for wearing those sweats anywhere near your bedroom.

Your tongue peaked out from your lips and you watched him swallow and clench his fists. Every part of you was begging for him and you hated yourself for it so you got up, looked him dead in the eyes, said nothing, and went to your room. You didn’t look to see if he followed and ignored the slick between your legs begging him to do so. If he did go to your door you weren’t opening it, weren’t even looking for the shadow of his boots beneath the frame. If he could hear through the walls then to hell with it because you swore Bucky Barnes knew exactly what he was doing by coming to you tonight. After weeks of missing him and his arrival in clothes you loved ripping off of him, cologne you’d bought, and a fight that used to get him laid; you decided to take care of your own needs. Reaching in your bedside table you took out your vibrator and pressed it to your clit. It didn’t take long until you came and the orgasm put you right to sleep. All that pent up want made you go practically black out and you wouldn’t even remember that you’d called out the name of your enemy in that moment of bliss. The man vicious enough to torture you in your own home was, once again, all you’d dream of.

It had been a year, seven months, three weeks, and a day since the break up… not that you were counting ~~anymore~~. Bucky’s revolving door of partners to the Tower never stopped feeling like a personal attack. Every mission was borderline silent between the two of you as you finally labelled the flashing sign over your head with the word you never thought would be used to describe you: _Jealous_. The team marched off the quinjet in pairs and you pulled at the velcro on your tactical gear, chucking it into your locker as your tired eyes thought about taking your cell phone out of the pocket. Deciding against it, you were determined to leave the team in silence to head to the gym. It had been sitting with you for months, this need to be a ghost while you tried to rifle through the emotions without professional help. Nat looked over at you, “We’re going to grab drinks. You haven’t come out with us on a Friday in-”

Cutting her off you kept your eyes on your locker as you shut the handle and spun the dial. “Thanks for the invite, Nat, but… I just can’t.” Knowing he was still standing just a few lockers down, broad and brooding, and that even if you lowered your voice to offer a better explanation he would hear it was enough for you to keep it simple. “I didn’t even realize it was Friday, but I skipped the gym this morning and you know I’ve been trying to tone up since I was benched for so long.”

“You just single-handedly arrested a fugitive and his two renowned security guards, I think you had your workout.” Natasha crossed her arms, widened her stance, and you knew she was trying to stop you from making your exit. Then she offered up that sisterly-tone that, under any other circumstances might have won you over. “You’re in the best shape of your life. You don’t need to hit the gym.”

“The entire team was there. We all did what we had to do.” A pathetic cover for the truth. It wasn’t lost on you that if you and Bucky were still together that your behavior today would have been cause for an argument. Nor was it lost on you that his silence only solidified your certainty that there was nothing worth fighting for between the two of you and you hated how one sided that was, how impossible it was to breathe in the same room as him after all this time. “Besides, if I’m really in such great shape I wouldn’t have anything to wear. Have fun though. I’m sure I’ll be up when you get in if you want a late night snack.”

Stepping through the side door before Wanda could join in on the protest, you started your workout by taking the stairs. Nat should have known you would rather take the stairs than the elevator where Sam or Steve’s expressions, which had long since shifted from pity to genuine worry, waited for you. The truth was that you couldn’t do it; couldn’t do the fake happy, couldn’t do the rebounding, couldn’t pretend to be happy when he was laughing five minutes after it ended. Thinking about drinking a cheap warm beer while Bucky draped his vibranium arm over someone else made you physically ill. All this time and you still never slept on the nights the team went out because you knew he would bring someone home and you could perfectly picture it: him getting over you by getting under someone else, his name on new lips, his lips tasting like someone that wasn’t you. You had no choice but to punch your way through the gym to get rid of the image, the burning memory. Every time you stopped you were on a ledge of anger, sobbing, or exhaustion.

With every single mission, every different person brought home, and every night painfully aware of how incapable you were of giving yourself to another person, you kept coming back to the same conclusion: It was time to leave the team. Your fists crashed into the punching bag, the sound of your breathing and movements echoing through the empty gym. Sam had told you months ago that you could do any job you wanted and he would help you find something else if it was what you really wanted. That was what stuck with you, his tone that he knew you didn’t and that leaving the Avengers was solely about Bucky.

You thought you were strong enough to jump into the unknown. You thought you were logical enough to make the move out of your dream job if it meant that one day you wouldn’t feel like this anymore. Yet every morning you told yourself ‘one more day’ and you dragged your tired ass through the routine of eating something, running somewhere, punching anything, washing it all off- rinse and repeat. Then the truth turned up in the doorway of the gym. His long dark hair was pulled half up, his face peppered in stubble because he’d shaved that morning and he was the king of the five o’clock shadow. Despite looking cleaned up from the mission you noticed he was in sweats and a clean henley, navy so that stupidly perfect his eyes looked as beautiful as ever- just like the rest of him. It certainly was a far cry from the leather jackets and fitted dark wash jeans that were a staple of his Friday nights at a bar attire.

Chastising yourself for drooling over him you went back to murdering the punching bag. Every hit seemed to solidify the sinking feeling that you could no longer make it ‘one more day’. “I hate that I miss you.” The words were a muffled mess in your heavy breathing through gritted teeth.

One would think that with time a love would fade into settled memories of the good times and you’d miss a friend. None of this settled for you, the good and the bad memories were still so vivid and now you had to wonder at what point did you stop letting your heart do the talking because that wasn’t you, you were all head, all logic and determination. You felt spineless, hollow in wanting him to want you. “Don’t you think it’s a bit vain to go to the gym in a shirt that will rip in one half assed flex, Buckbeak?” You snorted, punching the hell out of the bag and smirking at the use of his old nickname like you still knew him.

“Would you take me back?” Bucky grabbed your shoulders and you immediately stiffened. Trying to snap out of his grasp, you shook your shoulders and tried to swing for the bag and focus on your routine. He stepped between you and the punching bag, his body not moving as he took the brunt of the bag smacking against him and a single full force punch from you. You didn’t know how to react but surely this was disbelief, a fantasy created by your mind officially caving in on itself.

Pressing your eyes as tightly together as possible to stop yourself from crying, you tried to draw yourself out of this sick nightmare that insisted on being played out. You’d been on enough missions to know Wanda couldn’t be the only one to get in a person’s head. The thing you missed the most wouldn’t just appear like this. So you tried to snap out of it, blinking at the tears that stung you were certain you were under some sort of chemical attack. Frantically blinking you unwrapped the gloves from your hands and looked at the thick scar, still there and you pressed hard into it. It always ached, but you’d made a habit of rubbing it to feel something. Now you hoped it would wake you up. Taking a jagged breath the space between you was riddled with the smell of Bucky’s cologne. The smell that had lingered in your room for a week when you were alone and awake at midnight sick to your stomach and broken hearted. “This isn’t real. You’re not real.” Stumbling backwards you pawed for your gym bag that you’d left on the sparring mat. Your chest was tight and burning, you tried to cough for air. “Jarvis…”

Bucky’s arms wrapped around you so tight you couldn’t fight him. “You’re having a panic attack. Listen to my heartbeat, Kid. I got you. You’re okay, you’re safe. I’ve got you, Kid.” As you steadied your breathing to match his, he eventually loosened his grip enough to unpin your arms from between you. Bucky half thought you’d pull away or start fighting him again, but you wrapped your arms tightly around his middle. His blue eyes looked down at the mess of your hair and the corner of his mouth tugged a little into a smile. Boldly, he started to rub soft circles into your back. “Kid, I need you to listen to me, okay?” He swallowed when you said nothing, didn’t even look up at him. It was the silence that had crippled his own recovery from your relationship. “I thought love wasn’t enough, that loving me was going to cost you your life and that wasn’t a deal I was willing to take. Yeah, I got my head straightened out in Wakanda, but my heart didn’t know what it needed until I met you. I love this job, but I don’t need to save lives if I’m not living my own. I’ve been bullshiting my way into thinking I could get over you by reverting back to old habits. The damage of fighting with you, the damage of keeping my distance thinking you’d move on eventually when I wasn’t managing that myself. I know what it looked like. I know I hurt you, but I’m begging you to give me a chance to fix it. I’ll leave the team if you’d just take me back.”

His words rang through your head and you looked up at him, cheeks tear stained, skin splotchy, lashes damp, lip quivering. Bucky’s rough palms brushed your cheeks dry as he tried to read your expression for some sign of hope. “I wasted so much time trying to hate you.” He nodded and pressed his lips to your forehead in silent apology. You closed your eyes and savored the gentleness of his touch, certain your heart had stopped beating the second he’d pulled you to his chest. Sliding your fingers over his ribs and up his chest you pulled his mouth down to yours. A part of you knew it wouldn’t be the same, but you hadn’t expected it to hurt. With every reminder of how much you knew those lips, loved the way they pressed into yours or how his tongue tasted on yours, your mind gifted you flashes of the women he’d been with since leaving you.

Your fingers tangled in his hair as you cried into his kisses, but the salt on your lips wasn’t just your own. While you tried to push away the intrusive thoughts of everyone he’d been with to erase you, he was pushing away the memories of you crying, you calling out his name in nightmares and orgasms, and how much it hurt to not run to you, to not let you in. Opening your eyes when he picked you up and carried you to a nearby workout bench and sat down with you on his lap, you saw the familiar glassy tired gaze of a person afflicted with heartbreak. You couldn’t help but doubt his insistence that you were the remedy. He was the cause and the cure of yours, you knew it with every fiber of your being, so you stole what time and affection he was willing to give you.

Sniffling, you pulled off your sports bra and threw it to the floor before tugging at his own shirt, a task made more difficult by his mouth already reaching for your skin. This was new, this wasn’t what the two of you had been like before. Sex was reserved for the bedroom. Even when things had been good he liked to pin you down, spank you, be rough with you. When it was a post-fight fuck he’d make bruises of his own and kiss old and new when he finished. Public, needy, and soft was foreign territory for you and you wondered if this was what broken people did to heal. Your gaze looked down at him as he groped your breasts and took your nipples in his mouth, gently teasing your neglected flesh before moving to the other and you whimpered at the forgotten sensation, hips rocking against his sweatpants as your core begged for friction.

Bucky’s mouth moved back to yours as he lifted his hips up enough to tug his boxers and sweats down his thick thighs and, like a magnet, your hands went between your bodies to stroke him. It felt unbelievably satisfying to hear him groan into your mouth and feel him completely hard in your hands. His fingers didn’t rush to rip off your own pants and you swallowed at the thought of trying to take him. “How did I ever think we would be better off alone?” Bucky croaked as he pulled your chest to his and he held you softly, peppering your décolletage in kisses as you took the opportunity to pull your pants off and as they went his coarse hands ghosted down your thighs. “Look at you, Kid. So beautiful.”

His thumbs pressed into your sore muscles, making you moan into the curve of his neck. You were waiting for the familiar force of him. A hand around your throat, fingers pulling your hair, or the sting of his hand spanking your ass. Swallowing at the knot in your throat you wondered when it was going to happen, when this Bucky that still seemed to care about you was going to shapeshift back into the enemy you’d made of your ex. It didn’t happen. Instead, he kept giving you little confessions between kisses, sprinkling the nickname only he had been allowed to use with you into every sentence.

Even when he reached around your leg to stroke himself and line himself up to your slick entrance he waited, letting you set the pace. After all the necking, swollen lips from wet kisses where you two had moved across each other’s skin desperate to make up for lost time, you still took your time. In heavy gasps you lowered yourself onto him, gripping him tightly as he stretched and filled you. Your fingers dug into Bucky’s shoulders as you whimpered, a desperate little sound. In every little pause he pressed a kiss to your forehead and brushed his hands across your skin. Bucky wasn’t about to let you go, wasn’t about to let you doubt how much he loved every inch of you. The touch of cool metal was strategic, placed on the most sensitive parts of your body to bring you pleasure or used as easy support so you would feel safe and confident in your subtle movements.

Words failed you, the feeling of him inside you again familiar, but this new sweet disposition a dream. Your fingers combed through his hair and you pulled your mouth from his. Your eyes drank in every feature of his face as you started to ride him, hips rolling as you ground your way down his length and back up. Gently scratching at the back of his neck, Bucky’s eyes closed and opened like he was in a trance and all he wanted to do was watch you doing this but he was too high off the feel of you to manage it. With his throat exposed you went right for that spot, the one that took his breath away, and when you did you felt him twitch inside you, coaxing you to ride him faster.

What had started as Bucky’s confession, Bucky holding you, and Buck tasting you, melted into your own nonverbal declaration of love. Your mouth met every familiar scar with the tip of your tongue and every new one with a gentle kiss. His metal arm hugged your waist as you rocked against him, trying to remember to breathe between those hungry, desperate kisses. Every time your hair fell in your face he brushed it away just to look at you and, when the room wasn’t echoing with the sound of your moans, his groans, and the sound your flesh on his, he was back to begging for to hear you, to kiss you, to have you take him back. A million promises of better times to come.

You couldn’t last long after that, your swollen clit brushing against his length and all you wanted was to hear him get off too, but you couldn’t focus on anything now but your muscles tightening around him and how he looked at you when you moaned louder. Bucky brought you to the edge by rutting his hips off the bench to meet you, metal thumb massaging your clit. He didn’t ask for it, he just watched your build up and when you soaked his cock, Bucky let you clench around him like a vice without moving. Cradling you to his chest he brought your scarred hand to his lips and kissed the long raised, discolored symbol of your past.

That did you in, something about this gentle stranger cradling the hurt that personified years of pain. Despite your shaking legs, your physical and emotional exhaustion you pressed yourself to him and kissed Bucky’s neck, jaw, and shoulder. You held him so tightly in your arms as you rode him faster and he sputtered loud and deep inside you, his teeth scratching your shoulder. You felt his mess dripping down your thighs as Bucky panted into your chest. With sleepy, tired hands, you lifted his dazed chin. There were a million things you wanted to say but you knew that this was going to be the first proper thing you’d said to him. “Take me back because I love you because I love that you love helping people and that you’re perfect for this job. Take me back because I miss you and I don’t know how to breathe or sleep without you. Take me back because my body can’t belong to anyone but you.”

Bucky’s fingers ghosted up your spine and he added, “We’re not the same people.”

“… and that’s for the better for you.” You lowered your gaze, not wanting to cry with him still inside him. “Are you sure we won’t fall back into the bullshit when you have to put up with me working through my shit? You sure you won’t run?”

“I can’t wake up another day without you. If you won’t hold the time I used up fighting with you against me, then who am I to hold the damage I caused against you? Just take me back, Kid, we’ll figure out the rest along the way.” Bucky nuzzled his nose against your jaw as if it could rub what he was saying in like a balm for all the hurt. You hummed into it like you believed it might be.

He wasn’t vile. He wasn’t vicious. He wasn’t vain. He was the remedy.

“We’ll figure out the rest.”


End file.
